Chapter 18

When she became 15, a coming-of-age ceremony was held for her, but it was a meaningless thing to Ashtie. What banquet would need a person who lives alone? The king, siblings, and other nobles talked to her only with formal celebration words. They were not people who would give love to Ashtie anyway, and there was no one she liked. The only one she could love in this country was her mother. As if to prove it, people who showed up at the banquet never expressed pure favor to her. Even though the nobles smiled, Ashtie found that the essence was ridiculed, contempt, or insignificant sympathy.

Ashtie often went to Wroclaw. The book was a friend. Even though no one would praise her again. “Ashi, my baby, I’m so proud of you. You are so smart.” She could not hear that anymore, but Ashtie was stuck in a corner of Wroclaw, reading books from morning to night. As the place for wise people to gather, Wroclaw was a nightless place. Ashtie also stayed up many nights, while reading books in there.

She did so because the palace was where she had all the memories with her mother, and it made her miss her mother endlessly. She missed her too much, sometimes she felt like she would go crazy. That is why she went to that huge library so often. She read lots of books, not distinguishing the field. The books were always new to her. The more she read, the more she built up her knowledge.

Of course, nobody took care of her. “Ashi, you have to eat. You should not skip your meals.” Nobody said things like that, so without any interruption or interference, Ashtie could read several books in a row in one sitting. She had skipped meals so often. When a little girl spent all of her time in the library all day like that, only reading books, other people could initiate conversations with her, but they were too busy to discuss amongst themselves. Some glanced at her and talked in whispers behind her back.

Conversation. It seems to have happened sometimes. “Your Highness, what book are you reading?” Or, “Your Highness, what did you think about this book?” When they called her “Your Highness”, she could not feel any respect for royalty in their voice. Ashtie tried to not talk for too long, even if others started talking to her. She used to deliberately ignore or cut off the conversations.

It was beneficial not to interact with them.

Ashtie wished really badly. She wanted to live peacefully and adequately alone in Lotte Bishel. That wish came true to some extent because the king didn’t come to Lotte Bishel. The nightmare that he made was over, but the afterimage remained.

With that dark afterimage, left all alone, Ashtie hoped and wished. She wished nobody would touch her. The little child prayed many times, “I beg–nobody come here. Don’t come. Nobody cares about me.”

She didn’t want to be deeply involved with others. They all would die someday. She sometimes thought like that. Then, she could not breathe well. “To pour out affection and give all of my heart, and one day, somehow, unexpectedly,

“If that person dies, or if I can’t see that person anymore… if that person leaves me, then how about me? How I will live? How it will kill me, again?”

This was the decisive reason. It was only secondary to being careful not to touch her in the royal family.

Ashtie kept hiding inside. She tried to not reveal who she was. She just repeating it to herself every day, “This is better. This is better.”

At 16 years old, she was in Baya Nansheed. In school, she also tried to not interact with people as much as possible. “This is better.” It was a familiar solitude. She went to school alone, ate alone, studied alone at school, went back to the palace herself, had leisure time alone, and fell asleep alone. Ashtie tried to suppress all sentimental thoughts, but sometimes—

“Are you really okay? Wasn’t the phrase “thorough solitude” made for me?” She used to think so. “But it’s all right,” Ashtie soothed herself. She was already accustomed to growing up and appeasing herself. Ashtie was already used to soothing and comforting herself.

But one day, her little brother sent her an invitation. Ashtie was suddenly frightened by the sentence. It was said that there would be a small tea party in the palace and it asked if she would join. She was accustomed to being laughed at and was confident in showing people her indifferent face, but sometimes she got nervous or embarrassed–such as this case.

“What is this about? Does this royal family now try to harass me in clever ways? I barely talked with the fifth. Why did he send me this invitation?”

Ashtie rejected it casually. She thought that was it, and they would not ask her like this again.

But a few days later, he came to Lotte Bishel. “Won’t you go to school with me?” Ashtie was embarrassed to see L’avenant, who smiled at her. Since their house was the palace, and the way to the school was the same, she could not reject coldly. She could not go any other way and could not tell her she went to a different school, so feeling awkward, she just went to the school with him in the same carriage. L’avenant tried to talk with her about this and that, but Ashtie closed her lips, so his attempts failed every time. “Yes. Don’t care about me. Why are you trying to talk to me?” she thought. They went back home separately, so Ashtie thought that would be the end.

But he asked to take a walk together, sent invitations whenever the banquets were held, asked to come and eat the new desserts he got together, and complimented her about hearing how great dancer she was. “But, why?” She couldn’t figure out why. Anxious and frightened, she refused his favors and invitations each time–cold rejections. A few months passed like that.

However, he continued to show good feelings toward her–kindness and friendliness, as if he didn’t get exhausted by it all.

The walls that she built up perfectly for years were falling down little by little. And the opportunity to open one’s heart to others, as always, came to an unexpected moment. It was a wall that was about to break down by a child constantly knocking on the door.

“I happened to see your dance.”

Ashtie did not respond.

“It was really beautiful… I even can’t express it in words.”

The boy smiled as if he was shy.

That time Ashtie thought, “L’avenant might be fine. I thought I can’t love anybody again, and it was a commitment that would not change. But maybe… This kid might be okay. He might not die. Yes. Isn’t it okay?”

Suddenly, the feelings of relief, affection, and fullness that could not be spoken rose in her heart. “Maybe I can love other people besides my mother. There may be someone besides my mother who can give me full affection. Someone, also, who is very noble. The first person would be L’avenant”

Obviously, there was a gap between them. She could not tell him about what the king had done, and how she had been in great despair and frustration since her mother’s death.

But Ashtie liked the boy, who showed her a friendly attitude. And that was important.

Like that, he stepped into the wall. Ashtie did not stop him. Soon, they allowed each other to call each other by their nicknames. “Sister, Ashi.” Whenever she saw the brother who called her softly, a light smile came out. Then, he became crown prince. Still, he remained close to Ashtie.

The time went by. She graduated from Baya Nansheed. She became 18 years old. It was about time to marry, but she could postpone that into her early twenties. Besides, there would be no noblemen who would want to marry her. The king had left her alone. Her life was no different. She slept in Lotte Bishel, ate, spent all her time at Wroclaw, and danced. She lived like that.

One day, she heard that the king of Monterobis had changed. The war ended less than two years after that. It was when she was twenty years old, during the winter.

“You will go to the king of Monterobis.”

That was all. She stared in vain at the king, who didn’t add any explanation.

“Oh, I will be a prisoner of war. I am being sold. This royal family won’t protect me. Why am I living? Because I have to. Rather, what if I was not a royal princess? What if I was a free spirit, dancing like my mother? But to me, who only hoped for peace, in this country where the war happened, if I didn’t have this thin shield by being a princess, how could I even manage to live? I am so self-contradictory, I can’t endure it.”

Ashtie let all the maids out and packed the luggage by herself. She packed too simply to be called the princess’s luggage and rode in the carriage that came from Monterobis. It was a terribly fluffy chair, but that was it. “Are they trying to show respect to the princess? But I am just a prisoner of war.”

And God abandoned me like this, and eventually…

Don’t do this. Please, don’t do this. Please, the child, your daughter is watching! Shut up. Stop! You are my wife. In the room, please, do it in the room. I will do it here. The sound buzzed, whether it was reality, or dream, or past.

Ashtie buried her face in her hands. All the lights went out, and her eyes darkened.

It was hopeless. So far, she had lived only looking after herself. She didn’t want anything else. She only hoped to live in peace, so she lived quietly, and the result for that was being sold as a soother to the king of the enemy, who was known as a vicious man across the whole continent.

“I will be dragged into captivity and end my life in sorrow and misery like my mother did in the deep place of the palace. It will be terrible… I rather wish to die. No, I already want to die. I hope to die as early as possible if I will be violated as a pawn. Already, I was living like a dead body. After I saw my mother’s death with my own eyes, I was living like this. Oh, heaven help me. Why it doesn’t give me a single light of hope? A handful of sunlight? I don’t hope for love or affection. I don’t need anything. Just give me peace and rest. Please.”

“Your Highness.”

Ashtie opened her eyes.

She thought she did in the past. It was the present in which she buried her face into her hands.

“Excuse me, Your Highness. I’ll pour you some more tea.”

She was a maid. Ashtie knew her face and name well. The sound of pouring tea in the teacup was heard.

Ashtie nodded. “Yes. I am here now.”

She blinked one more time. The scent of flowers, warm wind, sweet desserts, a book, her room in the palace, and the balcony… all was still the same.

She had a light, ambiguous smile.